View full sizeBHP Billiton announced recently that it had drilled a successful appraisal well in a Gulf field called Mad Dog, on behalf of BP. The field may hold as much as 4 billion barrels of oil equivalent, according to BP. (Photo courtesy BP)

WASHINGTON -- BP has won approval of its first permit to drill in the deep water of the Gulf of Mexico since the Deepwater Horizon disaster.

The federal Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement on Wednesday approved the drilling permit for an exploratory well in BP's Kaskida Field in the Gulf's Keathley Canyon map area. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management last week approved a supplemental exploration plan for the area, 246 miles south of Lafayette. The well would be in 6,034 feet water depth.

"BP has met all of the enhanced safety requirements that we have implemented and applied consistently over the past year. In addition, BP has adhered to voluntary standards that go beyond the agency's regulatory requirements," said BSEE Director Michael R. Bromwich. "This permit was approved only after thorough well design, blowout preventer, and containment capability reviews."

These voluntary standards include the use of blind shear rams and a casing shear ram on subsea blowout preventers, third party verification of BOP testing, and maintenance and laboratory testing of cement slurries.

"After several months of hard work developing and implementing our new drilling standards and sharing those standards with industry partners and regulators, we are pleased to have received a permit to drill another appraisal well in the Kaskida Field," said a BP spokesman. "This fourth deepwater permit is another milestone in our steady return to safely drilling in the Gulf of Mexico."

The previous three permits were not for drilling but to plug and abandon wells.

Not everyone is pleased with the prospect of BP's return to drilling in the Gulf.

"The Administration is taking a wrong-headed approach. They seem to be more responsive to Big Oil than they are to the public, which is still reeling from the last BP debacle," said Jacqueline Savitz, senior campaign director for the environmental group Oceana.